Friendship 267accounts were more intimate than those of
men. Because these findings held for a best
friend, it did not appear that men were being
more selective than women.
Second, Reis and colleagues (1985) asked
whether men’s friendships lacked intimacy
because men were notcapableof intimacy or
because menpreferrednot to behave in inti-
mate ways. Students and their best same-sex
friends were asked to engage spontaneously
in a conversation about something that was
important to them. A female graduate stu-
dent rated videotapes of these interactions
and found that men’s interactions were as
intimate as those of women, as demonstrated
by similar levels of self-disclosure. However,
a panel of undergraduates found that males
discussed less intimate topics than females
did. The authors concluded that women and
men are equally capable of intimacy, but men
prefernot to behave as intimately as women.
Cross-cultural research suggests that
some of the sex differences in intimacy are athat friendship closeness is due not only to a
dispositional variable, sex of the person, but
also to a structural difference, the sex of the
friend with whom one is interacting. Men do
not always display less intimacy than women
in their interactions with friends. In fact, when
men’s interactions involve a woman, they can
be just as intimate as women’s interactions.
The finding that men’s interactions with
other men are the least meaningful was repli-
cated by a study that explored several expla-
nations for it (see Figure 8.5b; Reis, Senchak, &
Solomon, 1985). First, the investigators exam-
ined whether men were simply more selective
than women about the people with whom
they are intimate. Here, RIR interactions
with the best friend were examined. Women
rated their interactions with their best friend
as more meaningful compared to men. Stu-
dents also provided a written account of their
most recent meaningful conversation with
their same-sex best friend. Judges reviewed
the narratives and determined that women’sFIGURE 8.5 Meaningfulness of interactions with men and women. A daily diary study showed that
men’s interactions with men were rated as less meaningful than men’s interactions with women or
women’s interactions with men or women. The results of the study by Wheeler et al. (1983) are depicted
in Figure 8.5a. The results were replicated by Reis et al. (1985) and are shown in Figure 8.5b.
Source: Adapted from Wheeler et al. (1983) and Reis et al. (1985).Meaningfulness of InteractionParticipant: Male
(a)FemalePartner: Males Females Males Females18172021222319Participant: Male
(b)FemalePartner: Males Females Males FemalesMeaningfulness of Interaction5015202510M08_HELG0185_04_SE_C08.indd 267 6/21/11 8:12 AM